JayB

"The man who has gone through a college or university easily becomes psychically unemployable in manual occupations without necessarily acquiring employability in, say, professional work." -JS

It's worth noting the second peak of Alt-A and Option ARM reset that hits in 2010-12. I suspect that the pay-option peak will actually hit a bit sooner than the chart would suggest, since the percentage of pay-option borrowers who are adding deferred interest to their balances each month isn't small. I think most of those loans automatically reset to a significantly higher rate when the balance equals ~115% of the original loan value, and the "pay-option" feature goes away. The reset problem isn't going anywhere, and will be hitting a different sector of borrowers when it rolls around. Hopefully all of the people in the second hump were qualified at the fully amortizing rate.

So basically you're suggesting that this be dumped on future generations to pay back. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23241606 A future crisis in the making is retirement. Social Security will continue to shrink. With the change from Defined Benefit programs (pensions) to Defined Contribution programs (401k), individuals will have less money, as it turns out that they are poor investors, have bad choices (high expenses), or simply opt out of the programs and save little or nothing at all. In a few years, poor retirees will be clamoring for the govt to *do something*. Aside from all of the other subsidies tossed in the personal housing trough, the taxpayers are already bailing out borrowers by eliminating the tax on the debt balances forgiven by banks in short sales. I suspect that this is only the beginning. With regards to 401(k)'s, it seems like moving from opt-in to the opt-out model and tossing all of the money into a retirement date fund is the way to go for the large number of people who are in control of their retirement assets but can't define the difference between stocks and bonds...

Let's focus on your capacity to support your central claim here, then broaden our focus. When that's finished, you can make the argument that gerrymandering and the electoral college render either any sitting president or Bush incapable of critiquing any aspect of any election in any other country.

My argument is not that you are the only one who has made such claims. The first argument is that if *you* or any other average citizen are aware of them, they are quite public. It follows, then, that neither your claims nor the evidence that they are ostensibly based upon are unavailable for examination by anyone who wishes to do so. If this is the case, everyone in the country with either a motive or the authority to act upon them is also aware of them - yet...nothing has happened. The burden of proof, logic, and plain sanity rests on your shoulders here. Explain how this is possible. What "political reasons" could the democrats possibly have for not uncovering blatant rigging of the presidential election? What's the downside? How do you explain the press's apparent reticence here? Also - you might not have caught this earlier, but what response do you have to the fact that the comments made by Diebold's CEO in his capacity as a party official were issued on a public fundraising letter, widely distributed through the US mail? Is stating one's intention to rig an election in public the mark of a canny conspirator capable of pulling an elaborate plot of this magnitude and keeping it quiet for four years? This is straight-up insanity here amigo.

So why this business about me arguing against statements that you haven't made? Where is the proof? Any party that had any *inkling* of such conduct by their opponents both the motive and the means to dedicate massive resources to investigating such an incident, ditto for any publication that even dabbles in investigative journalism? If an average citizen like you has free access to damning factual evidence, how is it that no one with any authority to act has noticed, and why haven't they acted on it? This would make any political sandal in history inconsequential by comparison. What gives? As far as gerrymandering is concerned, it's clearly a defect in my opinion. How, in your opinion, does the fact that partisan majorities in state legislatures use the rules to redraw the lines of electoral districts in a manner that favors their interests preclude American presidents from articulating critiques of elections in other nations? Does this go for all presidents, or just Bush?

And just in case you are tempted to hesitate for a moment at the border... http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2008/02/the_archbishop_of_canterbury_w/allcomments.html

The irony of this statement coming from a self-described Marxist is so staggering that it has a kind of grandeur to it...

who the hell walks around climbing areas with a camera and snaps close-ups of strangers? and then posts them on an internet forum? sounds to me about one step away from an upskirt photography. Van Driesen wants you to find your center...

"He's disempowering the misandrists by appropriating their term of abuse for his own purposes.."

I am glad that you agree that: 1)Both parties are guilty of using gerrymandering to suit their own purposes. 2)There is no credible evidence to suggest that electronic voting have been rigged to distort the vote count in any recent presidential election. regarding #2, whatever the "evidence" is, why not not get rid of electronic voting till it can be made transparent and opensource? until it is so i will always distrust the results (except of course when they are in my favor ) I have no problem reverting to optical scanning, for example, but Matt hasn't been going on about the technical merits of one voting technology in the four-year-long-monomaniacal-insinuatathon...

What specific defects in our elections are you referring to here, and which proven defects would pertain exclusively to Bush? Is this all about the gerrymandering of congressional districts? This practice disqualifies any president of the US from criticizing anything that goes on in any election in any country at any time?

I am glad that you agree that: 1)Both parties are guilty of using gerrymandering to suit their own purposes. 2)There is no credible evidence to suggest that electronic voting have been rigged to distort the vote count in any recent presidential election.

Okay. I suggest you look up the etymology of the term, then speculate about whether this is a unique failing of either our time or any particular party. If it's neither, then one might expect it to disappear from the usual conspiro-litany you direct against the Republicans.

So that justifies redrawing the voting districts to shut the other party out, contracting with a private company who says they are going to make voting machines that will deliver the votes to your side and then refusing to address complaints about how it looks as if they did exactly that, or interfering with access to the polls in the other party's stronghold districts? That justifies accepting the word of the voting machine company who says they can't make a machine that produces a paper receipt when they make bank machines that do that flawlessly and which - by the way - are much more "hackproof?" I don't know whether fair elections would favor which party, but are you arguing that we shouldn't try? No insinuations based on the statement in the public fundraising letter here. Yet again, we apparently have an open and damning conspiracy that *no one* in Congress or elsewhere has seized on...for some inexplicable reason. If the Democrats had reason to believe that this actually happened, and credible evidence to back up an investigation - they'd sit on their hands? This would make Watergate look like cheating at a church bingo game, bring down the administration, and inflict lasting damage on the Republican party but... Come-ondude. Put down the partisan crack-pipe.

If no one has put forth this argument, from where did the practice of drawing congressional boundaries along racial lines come from? A statistical quirk? You don't think that this process could be used as a backhanded way to secure either a majority Democrat or Republican district?

Matt: Are you sure that the CEO of Diebold wasn't speaking in his capacity as Republican Party Chairman (or whatever party chair that he held) concerning their efforts to get out the vote in his state, since the statement that you are basing your case on appeared in a *fund-raising letter*? "Hello: Here is part one of my diabolical, top-secret conspiracy to subvert the democratic process, that I will henceforth detail in this public letter...."

I think that has been a stated reason for it in some instances. However, I'd venture a guess that some more neutral form of general redistricting would still result in there being districts dominated by black voters, hispanics, various Asian populations, or for that matter Mormons. Are you categorically opposed to gerrymandering, or is this a suitable rationale for redrawing the boundaries of Congressional districts?

Wasn't at least one stated purpose of gerrymandering to more or less guarantee racial minorities seats in congress?

I personally can't believe that someone hasn't posted a male-poster's face onto a stock photo of some chick doing yoga poses in a rocky landscape ~ 1/2 hour ago...

Seems like there's a couple of different questions at play here. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that you'll never have your photo taken without your consent in public, much less that you have a legal right to prevent people from doing so.* However, if you find out that the person who took your photo without your consent has posted your photo on a private website and a bunch of clownpunchers are making lewd comments that are creeping you out, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask the person who posted the photo and/or the folks that run the site to take the photo down, even if they aren't legally obliged to do so. *Exception being non-consensual photos of body parts that you are trying to conceal with clothing...

From Greg Child's essay entitled "The Denz Option" "The Bill Denz I recall was a man who was self-sufficient, stoic, complex, reticent, intense, ambitious, competitive, steel-willed, fiery, fearless, undemonstrative, and selfish. These are the attributes of the classic alpinist." Infuse your personality with enough of these attributes and you will have all of the uncommitted time that you can handle, methinks.

Brutal. Message and delivery were about as subtle as being strapped to a chair, the having the director roll a stage-amp from a Slayer show a couple of inches away before he starts shouting a four word summary of the message into the microphone over and over again until the bleeding out the ears requires medical attention..... "Triumph of the Will" has a light-touch by comparison.

And unwitting self-parody is yours.

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